- inmotioncommunicat
The Thrill of the AHA Moment: When You Figure Out What’s Not Working
Have you ever had one of those experiences when the light bulb just went off? You thought to yourself, ‘Now, I get it! Of course! It all makes sense!’”
It’s the moment of sudden realization, revelation or inspiration. You feel brilliant, clear-headed and ready to spring into taking an action. It’s the moment that can change your life (or your work) if you let it. Who doesn’t love a moment like that?
Not everyone can define the moment when the clouds cleared, the sun shined and the angels sang. Ok, so that’s a bit melodramatic. More often than not, it’s usually a lot of head nodding and saying things like “wow” or “oh s&%t.” Certainly, we see it a lot with new clients. It’s that moment when they realize what’s not working. And that dear readers, is a very good thing. Because once you know what’s not working, you can focus your attention and resources into making it work.
Here are our Top 3 AHA making moments in marketing:
It’s bright, it’s beautiful. Lots of words, lots of scrolling stock pictures. Maybe you even included some cool animation. But we run into this all the time. You designed your website for your needs, not theirs. People don’t care about you or your website. AHA! They come to see if you can solve their problems – Right Now. You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about and if your problem can be solved in less than four seconds. If you can't, the site is a failure. AHA again.
Target audience.
You’ve launched a great marketing campaign and developed some solid content. But have you considered that they're actually targeting the wrong audience? Many businesses find themselves in the unfortunate position of having created lots of excellent assets without fully understanding or pursuing the appropriate demographic. AHA. This happens A LOT with startups, because they don’t quite have a handle on who might be interested in their products and services.
If this is where you find yourself, now is the time to change. With so much data readily available, it's easy to take a closer look at the people who are interacting with your site and marketing materials. AHA yet again.
Social media.
Like anything in business, social media (done right) does require experience and an understanding of people, technology and marketing. Social media marketing is – here’s the AHA moment - most efficient and effective when it’s coordinated with your company’s branding team and demand generation efforts and viewed as a common thread throughout all your external marketing. Random tweets and blogs done just for the sake of doing are just that – Random. You are far more assured that they are successful by planning appropriately and implementing flawlessly. If you’re running a social media program but you don’t know what you’re going to accomplish next month, you are doing it wrong. AHA!
